Longing Lasts Longer

Penny Arcade speaks truth to power — at the ex pense of career concerns.  

A ROCK 'N' ROLL MANIFESTO 

performed in PROVINCETOWN, MA Written by Penny Arcade  

Penny Arcade, born Susana Ventura in 1950, has been a  voice in the wilderness since running away from home at  13. After a stint in the Sacred Heart Academy for Wayward  Girls, a reform school, she was released at 16 and spent the  summer homeless in Provincetown. At 18 she made her way  to New York City, where she joined Andy Warhol’s Factory,  the Play-House of the Ridiculous, and began seven decades  of speaking her mind in avant-garde spectacles performed  throughout the world. 

What she performs has been a target for self-righteous  censorship from the time she began — and the attacks  continue. Justifications may have changed, but the aim  remains the same: to silence her. There were bomb threats  

from Catholic zealots and for many years respectable  newspapers and magazines would or could not print the  title of her signature work about censorship, Bitch! Dyke!  Faghag! Whore!, which she began working on in 1990. 

They were not the only ones who disapproved. Penny  explains in an interview with Zora von Burden: 

“Both feminist academics and the art scene  

looked down on women who did erotic dancing  and it was certainly not considered an art form  or a self-empowering feminist economic option.  Posters of Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! were  torn off the street and the walls of clubs, shops,  and university campus bulletin boards,and decried  as offensive.” 

Penny Arcade might say with Mae West, “Censorship  made me.” It’s fueled her creativity and her understanding  of herself: unstoppable, sexy, funny, and unapologetically  honest. 

Longing Lasts Longer is her latest revelation, performed  with her long-time collaborator Steve Zehentner. 

“It was actually recommended to me... that I add a trigger warning to the top of this  show so that I didn’t traumatize anyone under  47 — you know, people who are not familiar  with satire, irony.” 

–from Longing Lasts Longer Produced by the Provincetown Tennessee  

Williams Theater Festival